Grade 1
Grade 1 Science Tutoring
Live online Grade 1 science in groups of four: living things, plant and body parts, the five senses, everyday materials, pushes and pulls, light, sound, seasons.
The short answer
Grade 1 science is sorting and naming rather than explaining. The year covers living and non-living things, plant parts, the body and five senses, everyday materials, pushes and pulls, floating and sinking, light and sound, day and night, and seasonal weather. We teach it in groups of four.
What we cover in Grade 1 Science
- Living things and things that have never been alive
- Parts of a plant: roots, stem, leaves and flowers
- The human body and the five senses
- What animals and plants need to survive
- Everyday materials: wood, metal, plastic, glass, paper and fabric
- Pushes and pulls; floating and sinking
- Sources of sound and sources of light
- Magnets, and things that need electricity to work
- The Sun, the Earth, day and night
- Seasonal changes and weather
By the end of the year
- Name the major parts of a flowering plant and the main external parts of the human body, and link each sense to the correct body part.
- Sort and group everyday objects, materials and living things by what can be observed about them.
- Describe pushes and pulls as forces and explore which objects float and which sink.
Where students get stuck
- Calling anything that moves 'alive' — cars, rivers, clouds and the Sun are all commonly classed as living things.
- Confusing an object with the material it is made from, so a spoon is described as a spoon rather than as metal.
Where Grade 1 science sits in the Pakistani curriculum
Under the Single National Curriculum there is no standalone science subject at this age. The content sits inside General Knowledge for Grades I to III, alongside social studies and ethics, and General Science becomes a subject in its own right at Grade 4.
Cambridge Primary and British-curriculum schools teach it as science from the first year. The topics overlap heavily either way, so we teach the substance and match the exercise book a family actually has.
Movement is not the test for being alive
Ask a six-year-old whether a river is alive and a good number will say yes. Clouds, cars and the Sun all move, and movement is the most visible thing about the living creatures a child has met, so it becomes the rule.
Replacing it takes a better rule rather than a correction. We work through what living things actually do — grow, feed, produce young, need water — and apply it to a river, a lorry and a plant in turn until the child can run the test themselves.
An object is not the same as its material
Asked what a spoon is made of, many children answer 'a spoon'. The word for the thing arrives years before the word for the stuff, and the distinction has to be taught rather than assumed.
It matters more than it looks, because every later lesson about properties depends on it. Sorting the same object by shape, then by material, then by whether it floats, is the exercise that separates the two ideas.
- Wood, metal, plastic, glass, paper and fabric — the six materials Grade 1 sorts by
- Properties a six-year-old can observe: hard or soft, rough or smooth, bendy or stiff, shiny or dull
- Whether an object floats or sinks is a property of the material as much as of the shape
- Session length
- 45 minSession length
- Maximum students in a group
- 4Maximum students in a group
- Sessions a week
- 3–4Sessions a week
Common questions
What science do children learn in Grade 1?
Living and non-living things, plant parts, the human body and the five senses, what plants and animals need to survive, everyday materials, pushes and pulls, floating and sinking, light and sound sources, magnets, day and night, and seasonal change.
Is science a separate subject in Grade 1 in Pakistan?
Not under the Single National Curriculum. Science content for Grades I to III is taught inside General Knowledge, together with social studies and ethics, and standalone General Science starts at Grade 4. Cambridge and British-curriculum schools teach science separately from the first year.
My child insists the Sun is alive. Should I correct it?
Correct it gently, and expect it to come back. Children build the rule 'it moves, so it is alive' from the animals they know, and the fix is a better test — does it grow, feed and produce young — rather than being told the answer.
Sources
- Cambridge Primary Science curriculum — Cambridge Assessment International Education
- Single National Curriculum: General Knowledge, Grades I–III — Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training, Pakistan
- National curriculum in England: science programmes of study — Department for Education
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